


Timeless Souls

by xlightless



Category: Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Immortality, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-15
Updated: 2017-06-15
Packaged: 2018-11-14 08:43:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11204472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xlightless/pseuds/xlightless
Summary: Steve haunts Diana in more ways than one.In which Diana realizes that Steve will continuously impact her as long as she lives––in other words, for eternity.





	Timeless Souls

**Author's Note:**

> Bit of a character study more than anything because wtf is a plot. 
> 
> Based entirely off this [post](http://paradi-siac.tumblr.com/post/161778579570/thecommodoresquid-okay-but-immortal-diana-and) because it would not leave me alone until I did something about it because this is the one het ship I'll actually let ruin my life, tyvm.

Thirty-five years pass when Diana sees Steve again. Her wounds are still fresh in her soul, and her mind still reels from World War II. Her tears have dried, but her heart still weighs heavy in her chest, supported only by the golden and scarlet armor that holds her together.

He walks down London’s glossy cobblestone streets, his dirty blond hair damp in the early morning drizzle. He holds a newspaper under one arm and a cup of coffee in the other. Her breath hitches, and her mind comes to a stuttering halt.

Suddenly, Diana is a confused and naive young woman entering this cruel world again.

“Steve?” Diana calls out. Her heels hit the pavement with each uncertain staccato _click-clack_ , bringing her closer to him. She reaches out to him, eyes wide and hopeful.

She stops like she’s snapping out of a trance.

He continues walking, and Diana curls her fingers into a fist that she lowers to her side. Maybe that isn’t even him. She watches his retreating back, her throat closing up.

_I wish we had more time._

Diana takes a deep breath. She knows an opportunity when she sees one. Maybe this is the gods giving her––giving _them_ ––another chance to live together in a time after and without war.

Diana follows him again, her steps more purposeful. She grabs onto his shoulder, gentle and still a little unsure.

He turns around, eyebrows furrowed together, and she has to take a moment to recollect herself. His pale blue eyes are just as piercing as they were when they first locked eyes on the warm beaches of Themyscira.

“Can I help you, miss?” he asks in a baritone so soft and so _familiar_ Diana almost doesn’t hear it above the rush of blood in her ears.

“I…” Diana’s voice catches in her throat, but she quickly recovers. “I was wondering if you would help me find my way to the train station.”

He smiles, and Diana catches the same jaded edge behind it, the same defensive wall that kept him so closed off from her before. “I’m actually heading there now. Would you like to come with me? I’m Steve Trevor, by the way.” He holds his hand out to her.

Diana takes his hand and smiles back because he is solid and absolutely real when she touches him. She smiles back. She feels relief, and anticipation, and fear, and utter unbridled _happiness_. “My name is Diana Prince, and yes, I would. Thank you.”

Diana finds out that this iteration of Steve Trevor works for a bank. He was born in the United States, but moved to London for university. His parents stayed in the States, but he visits them every Christmas.

They reach the train station too soon. Diana wants the moment to last longer. She prays to whatever god is willing to listen for more time with him. She can’t let him slip through her fingers again.

“I will admit, you’re lovely company. If you don’t mind me asking, I’d like to meet with you again,” Steve says at the ticket booths. Blood rushes up his cheeks and to the tips of his ears, but he doesn’t break eye contact with her, and she admires his determination.

Diana remembers that she’s half-goddess.

“I would like that, too.”

This iteration of Steve dies in a car crash six years later, but Diana feels like she’s gotten the closure she was denied years before. They wake up beside each other engulfed in the other’s warmth, and read the newspaper together, and eat breakfast in the early misty mornings on Steve’s apartment balcony.

They don’t get married, but the police officer who tells her about Steve’s death gives her a small velvet box with a glimmering ring inside, and she feels her heart wrenched from her chest again.

She could have saved him, and that’s what makes this death hurt that much more.

//

The Vietnam War begins to build up almost immediately after World War II, but the United States enters much later in 1964.

Diana becomes a messiah to the common people, a symbol of hope and empowerment, but the Vietnam War is a controversial subject. They demand to know where she stands, and she cannot stand for the thoughtless slaughter of innocent lives on both sides.

The military begins drafting boys right out of high school, advertising the glory of fighting in a war that doesn’t seem to have a visible end. Steve is one of those boys. He is eons younger than the previous times she sees him. He is assigned to the 4th Infantry Division in 1966, and fights on the front lines in Operation Attlebro.

Diana follows him all the way to the front lines, but they meet in an encampment outside of Pleiku. It’s almost like it’s 1918 again, but Steve’s smile is much more naive and much less cynical than he was in World War I. There are stars in his eyes when he meets her. He’s all baby-faced recklessness and naive optimism, untouched by the ravages of war.

“How about once we get outta this, we go out to a movie and a nice dinner?” he asks her with a lopsided grin and a poorly executed wink.

Diana responds with a laugh, a playful squeeze on his shoulder, and a coy “Maybe.”

Diana convinces herself that saving Steve this time means saving him from growing up too soon. No one could have predicted the Tet Offensive. Thousands are killed in the massacre. She finds him in a stuffy makeshift hospital lying on a cot, his entire left leg wrapped in bandages.

“Steve,” she whispers as she weaves between the nurses and injured to him.

Steve grips Diana’s cloak, his bloody fingers trembling, his whole body trembling. He stares into her eyes, pleading and tearful. “Please… Make–– Make it stop, D-Diana…”

When Diana brings him into her arms, she can feel just how small and frail he is this time.

There’s nothing more heartbreaking than seeing hundreds of soldiers––hundreds of _boys_ , resting just on the cusp of adulthood––crying out in pain, crying out for their mothers, and being unable to help all of them.

Steve eventually dies of his injuries a couple weeks later.

Diana mourns not only his life, but such an absolute loss of innocence.

//

Diana begins to lose count of how many times Steve appears throughout her life. Sometimes, she waits for him. Sometimes, he appears when she least expects. Every time, she’s surprised at how easily she falls for him. To an immortal, humanity’s time on Earth is so insignificant, but Diana is drawn to them with such an intense fascination and empathy.

Every time Diana blinks her eyes, Steve is there, different in every iteration, but he becomes a constant in her ever-changing world.

2020 is the year Steve finally proposes to Diana, and Steve Trevor becomes Steve Prince. The world they live in is imperfect, but she’s come to accept the darkness that lies within humanity.

With each life that comes and goes, Diana begins to notice that Steve is there to fight in every war, every time. The mornings that she wakes up beside him, she smiles because with each new life that comes and goes, she begins to realize that his presence is to remind her that even in humanity’s darkest moments, there’s still a glimmer of light, and hope, and goodness, and everything she was raised to believe in.


End file.
